Originally Posted by
IGH_Only
When my bike arrives, I don't plan on using a helmet for various reasons. How dangerous can it be if the state doesn't declare it a law?
Don't rely on the state or the posters here. it is your life. Make your own choices.
I have more than 50 years' experience riding in traffic and i have worn a helmet very few times--when mandated on group rides, or when riding off-road, where I expect to crash a couple time per ride if I am trying to clear new obstacle. I believe helmets have saved me from getting cut or scrapped a couple times .... but didn't prevent concussions.
People who live in fear of everything try to justify that fear by getting everyone else to share it. That is silly.
Your fears are valid---they are also yours. They are valid in that you are really afraid---not in that they are realistic. But we all have our comfort zones. I always wear a seatbelt since the frst time I hit something hard enough to hit the windshield. And once, while wearing a seat belt, i was hit hard enough to break the seatbelt and the seat---so I hit the windshield anyway. I still wear a seatbelt. That's me. Means nothing for or to anyone else.
Same with wearing a helmet off-road. I feel better so I do it. it never stopped a concussion .... but I feel better.
That is pretty much the extent of what 'science" can do for me. In hypothetical situations or lab tests, safety gear can do certain things---but people die of head injuries while wearing helmets, and a lot more die of other injuries while wearing helmets---and still it is less than 1000 people per year, each year. So screw all the fear-mongering. Wear a helmet if you want. Odds are far higher than you will hit your head in a fall in a bathroom---yet nobody recommends wearing a helmet in the shower.
In fact, head injuries are the chief result of car crashes, but nobody even considers wearing a crash helmet while driving unless they are racing. But they preach here about wearing bike helmets.
By the way I looked at the references of one of the papers cited here and found
"There was no significant association between the severity of the TBI, ISS scores, GOS-E or death and helmet wearing." (
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...510376251643E9)
Interesting that the authors of a cited study on helmets would find that wearing a helmet basically say that among the people they studied (TBI while riding or death while riding) wearing a helmet made no difference.